Excessive use of social networks and selfies encourages narcissism

According to a new study, the overuse of social networks, and the habit of constantly taking selfies, turns people into narcissists. According to researchers, at least a fifth of the world’s population is at risk of developing narcissistic traits associated with overuse of social networks, with particular emphasis on sharing photos.

The study was carried out by researchers at Swansea University and Milan University, who studied the personality changes of 74 individuals aged between 18-34 over a period of four months, and also assessed the use by part of individuals of social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.

All individuals who excessively used social networks showed an increase of about 25% in narcissistic traits during the course of the study.

Narcissism is a serious psychological problem, which may range from the exhibitionism of its material objects, to the exploitation of other individuals, and the study also concluded that a large part of those who only used social networks for verbal exclusive communication did not present these although the study concluded that those who had already outlined traces of narcissism from the beginning, were precisely those who tended to opt for verbal social interaction instead of sharing photos.

Of all those involved in the study, only one individual did not resort to the use of social networks, and the average daily use of social networks was about 3 hours, although some participants used social networks for 8 hours.

More than two-thirds of the participants used social networks to share photos, with 60% of participants using Facebook, 25% Instagram, and 13% Twitter and Snapchat.

According to the study, about 20% of people using social networks are at risk of developing traces of narcissism, which is a worrying number and problem.